During today’s blockchain event that took place in London, Opera announced the rollout of its new Opera browser for Android that includes one particularly exciting feature – an inbuilt Ethereum wallet. The app is considered to be a boon for cryptocurrency adoption.

Blockchain browser

The release of the app’s beta version happened in July, creating a lot of buzz in the cryptocurrency community since the mobile browser allows sending, receiving and holding crypto. The rollout of the app was conducted in partnership with the Joseph Lubin-backed startup called Infura.

Opera browser eliminates the need for installing a separate Android wallet on your smartphone. The browser, which runs on the Ethereum Blockchain, also gives users the possibility to access a slew of inbuilt dApps.

Increasing crypto adoption

Opera now brands its Android-based product as a ‘Blockchain browser’ in an attempt to trump its competitors with the help of the nascent technology. However, according to Opera’s Krystian Kolondra, it is not only about introducing a newfangled feature: she hopes that the browser will eventually boost the adoption of cryptocurrencies. Indeed, the industry is still crowded with speculators and investors in sharp contrast to a modicum of run-of-the-mill payments made with the help of crypto.

‘dApp explorer’

Lubin, the Ethereum cofounder who currently spearheads the crypto unicorn ConsenSys, also agrees that the new app certainly has disruptive potential, and it could excel in making decentralized applications available for the general public. As U.Today reported earlier, major decentralized applications in the likes of Augur and Bancor are struggling to live up to the hype with an embarrassingly low amount of daily users. With Opera browser, Web 3.0 breaking into the mainstream doesn’t seem to be a far-fetched possibility.

Global Crash: Major Chinese Mining Farm Shuts Down Due to Market Woes

Lu Qing explains that he was forced to sell off all mining equipment despite having access to super-cheap electricity

Chinese miners, who wanted to become rich in a snap because of the Bitcoin craze, are facing the music after the BTC price has been slashed by more than 80 percent since last year. Recently, a major mining farm has been sold off due to the exodus of its customers.

The chock-full market is getting less contentious

In order to prove that the state of the cryptocurrency mining industry remains in the doldrums in 2019, Nikkei, one of the largest financial newspapers in the world, reached out to Lu Qing, who has been making his living by mining Bitcoin. Qing had to return to Jiangxi, a southeast Chinese province, after his mining operation failed. Notably, his mining farm, which included more than 7,000 computers, remained profitable even when cryptocurrency prices started freefalling.

That was possible due to inexpensive renewable energy. However, as the price of the flagship currency plunged below the $4,000 mark, his clients started jumping ship en masse, and Qing had no choice but to sell his farm at low prices.

A bump in the road, or the death of crypto mining?

The report states that some of the equipment that earlier cost 30,000 CNY ($4,413) will now set you back only 400 yuan ($59). This trend can be seen worldwide – U.Today earlier reported how tech forums are flooding with cheap used mining cards, but not everyone is eager to buy graphics cards with the ‘used for mining’ stigma attached to them.

Currently, only the industry sharks are staying in business despite the market crash. Still, things are not looking great even for the biggest players. Case in point: Bitmain, a Beijing-based mining giant, which has booted tons of workers since failing to launch its much-hyped IPO.

SBI Supports Tangem Wallet with $15-Mln Investment, BOE Is Not Afraid of Crypto Taking Over Banks

The Japanese financial market giant SBI Group invests $15 mln into a Switzerland-based company, Tangem, which produces hardware wallets for virtual coins

On Monday, January 21, SBI Group announced that it has put $15 mln into a Swiss hardware wallet maker for crypto dubbed Tangem. The startup calls its storage vault an innovative banknote for virtual coins.

This wallet is meant to be utilized as a bank card and customers can use it for crypto transactions outside a coin’s major blockchain. The following is possible for paying in shops, for example. Coins can be put into the gadget by using a smartphone with enabled NFC.

Investment from a major Japanese financial company

When announcing its investment today, SBI stated that this money would enable Tangem to roll out its technology to other spheres of crypto, e.g. stablecoins, offerings of tokenized assets, ICO, digital identity and others. The company had the event confirmed in a separate press release. SBI has been working with cryptocurrencies for a while already, so it even has a special subsidiary for this dubbed SBI Crypto Investment. The latter works with investing into crypto startups and platforms.

As per SBI’s statement, it decided to invest in Tangem since the hardware wallets it offers are cheap and prospective. SBI believes that Tangem wallets may increase interest in virtual assets and the blockchain products of SBI itself.

Previous experience of SBI working with crypto

Back in 2018, SBI Group joined forces with Danish DLT company Sepior, which works in the sphere of crypto securities. Together, they started to make a crypto wallet for Sepior’s exchange, VCTRADE. Earlier still, SBI acquired 40 percent of shares in CoolBitX – a Taiwan-based hardware wallet producing firm.

Cold portable wallets are now becoming very popular for the security they give crypto assets offline. These gadgets are convenient and reliable due to the numerous hacker attacks on crypto exchanges in 2018.

Traditional financial giants and major banks are not afraid of crypto

SBI is a good example of a conventional financial giant investing into the crypto industry, wishing to earn on its innovations, too. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, senior BOE (Bank of England) advisor Huw van Steenis stated he believes that the BOE, as well as major banks in general, are not scared of crypto pushing them out of business. He claims that crypto assets fail the basic tests of financial tools, they have no actual value, and they are slow.

His major concern now is not crypto but fintech platforms competing with banks. Van Steenis says he admires their customer-driven attitude. He mentioned that banks are investing a lot of money at the moment to upgrade and improve their online payment systems in every possible way in order to retain their customers. So he wonders whether fintech platforms will be able to get enough clients before banks innovate their products for customers.

Marcus Hughes, who is the chief counsel for Coinbase, tells Forbes he predicts global authorities will make a big move in crypto regulations with a positive outcome

Last year was for the crypto industry a more than difficult one, considering the major bearish trend, worsened by the war that broke out between Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Cash SV – when the latter happened, many investors decided to get back at least some of their money, rather than wait for a miracle to come. This brought on a major crypto sell-out.

In a Forbes interview, the UK chief counsel for the Coinbase exchange, Marcus Hughes, voiced his opinion regarding the current situation in the crypto industry to improve in the near future. He believes that within the coming couple of years the industry will go through big changes in the sphere of governmental regulation. He was namely talking about Europe.

Prospects for crypto in the UK

Presently, the British regulator FCA (Financial Conduct Authority), which is in charge of the local banks, is doing research. The outcome of the latter may have the FCA prohibit trading Bitcoin-based derivatives. However, in December, the UK government mentioned that it is ready to direct the FCA to start overseeing virtual assets.

Besides, the watchdog is looking into nearly 20 startups that deal with crypto, as reported earlier by The Telegraph.

The head of the Treasure-based committee of UK lawmakers, Nicky Morgan, confirmed in an interview that the FCA and the whole British government are worried about the absence of regulation regarding digital assets, the fact that customers are hardly protected, and that crypto is actively used for money-laundering by some. The committee, as per Morgan, will keep insisting that regulation should be introduced.

Chances of crypto regulation in Europe

Hughes also mentioned that the European regulator working with banks (EBA) is also urging for crypto to become regulated in the near future in order to protect investors in this type of asset on the continent.

He even assumed that each EU country may finally launch its own crypto, but the most certain outcome is that common regulatory rules will start to be used around Europe. This, believes Hughes, would make it much easier for crypto exchanges to operate in the market.

The way major banks view crypto

Hughes came to the crypto industry from Morgan Stanley bank. He shared with Forbes that top executives of the bank believe in the potential of crypto and Bitcoin in particular. They expect this influence and power to remain in the coming years, too. Apart from that, he mentioned that other major banks are also interested in working with Bitcoin. What stops them now is the absence of proper regulation around the world.

Besides, Hughes believes that as soon as virtual coins move from the stage of speculation into the stage of practical use, more and more people will get to understand them and, therefore, accept this new class of assets.

SEC Set to Legalize Cryptocurrencies

The Securities and Exchange Commission is currently looking for the ways of licensing cryptocurrencies

Digital assets might soon become legal in Ghana if the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) comes up with a suitable regulatory framework, Prime News Ghana reports. Hence, cryptocurrencies could obtain the status of legal tender even, which would subsequently make them a viable payment method in the country.

Banning everything Bitcoin

On Jan. 23, 2018, the Bank of Ghana banned cryptocurrency trading while Bitcoin and altcoins weren’t recognized as a legitimate form of currency in the country. Hence, Ghana became one of the very few countries that outlawed Bitcoin (along with other North African countries, such as Algeria and Morocco). Lack of proper regulations was the main reason behind the crackdown, according to Ernest Addison, the bank’s governor.

Sweeping changes

Now, the country is on the verge of lifting the ban if the SEC steps up its game and proposes a viable regulatory framework. SEC’s Paul Ababio, while addressing the calls of indignant customers who complain about locked-up funds, claims trading cryptocurrency is a risky venture due to their legal status.

Meanwhile, Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) is currently keeping three crypto-oriented companies in its crosshairs. They have yet to define the physical location of these businesses.

Earlier, U.Today also reported about the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) issuing regulatory guidelines that are supposed to be a stepping stone to bringing regulatory clarity to the crypto space.

The BitTorrent Foundation intends to conduct several BTT airdrops to owners of Tron (TRX). The first one will be 1.1 percent of the supply in circulation

As U.Today reported earlier, the BitTorrent company soon intends to make several airdrops of their newly-made BTT tokens to the owners of TRX assets.

The first distribution is planned for February 11, when the block height reaches 6.6 mln. TRX users will get 10,890,000,000 BTT, which equals slightly over 1 percent of the total amount of BTT in circulation.

BTT airdrops in the coming years

Within this year, BitTorrent is going to spread around 12,000,000,000 BTT, which is 1.2 percent of the overall BTT amount. This will take place after the first airdrop in mid-February.

A year later, hodlers of TRX will be given around 13,000,000,000 BTT, which corresponds to around 1.3 percent of the total BTT supply.

Within six years after that, airdrops of BTT assets will slightly increase in amount, rising by 0.1 percent each year. By 2025, they will reach the figure of 1.7 percent of the total supply that will be in circulation by that time.

Special present to those who have stored Tron for a long while

To encourage and reward those users who have been hodling TRX coins for a long while already, BitTorrent intends to release an extra 99,990,000,000 BTT as another airdrop, giving them away during special events that will take place both on the Internet, on social media and offline, too.

All BTT airdrops will be conducted on Tron-based wallets at the ratio that TRX users keep in their wallets.

The BitTorrent Foundation will later provide details about the exchanges that will underpin the BTT airdrops mentioned above. So far, Indian exchanges Koinex and WazirX are in.

Binance’s CEO has also confirmed the support of the BTT airdrop, but an official statement from him has yet to come out.